Clamp Crossover Cocktails
by Thimble
Summary: Pick a character; pick another character: shake and stir.
1. Yuki to Hokuto

**CLAMP CROSSOVER COCKTAILS**

_by Thimble_

_Disclaimer: Pauper sum ego; nihil habeo._

_Fandoms: Card Captor Sakura, Clamp Campus Detectives, Man of Twenty Faces, Tokyo Babylon, X/1999;_

_Summary: Put two random characters together; shake and stir;_

_Ratings: Gen, K, with the exception of "Exorcism", which is het, T;_

_Notes/Warnings: Readers are assumed to have a working knowledge of the series and not be potentially traumatised by spoilers. Individual notes appended to each drabble;_

_Beta Reader: Thanks again, Daisy Ninja Girl._

**1. Yuki to Hokuto**

_Fandoms: Card Captor Sakura, Tokyo Babylon;_

_Characters: Tsukishiro Yukito, Sumeragi Hokuto;_

_Warnings/Notes: They are referring to the high school play in the CCS anime, the one that is interrupted by fog._

Under the striped awning of the cafe they gleefully work through a mountain of icecream. Yuki says to a girl small and dark and buzzing as a hummingbird, "So To-ya as Cinderella, and... me?"

Hokuto cocks her head. Behind his faux-innocent glasses Yuki is so thin and pale she can almost see through him. She grins.

"Now you, Yuki-chan, should beeee.... an empty can of mackerel! Valiant, tragic, an object abandoned and forgotten returning to help others in their need and in that journey finds its own power, fortune, and _love!"_

Yuki claps his hands.

(100 words)


	2. They Never Suspect the Penguin

**2. They Never Suspect the Penguin**

_Fandom: Card Captor Sakura, Tokyo Babylon;_

_Characters: Kinomoto Sakura, Sakurazuka Seishirou._

They spread hands against glass and watch penguins waddle around the artifical rocks of their enclosure. The cute girl points out the yellow crests and fuzzy feet, and the fatherly man, broad-shouldered and strong behind his glasses, smiles fondly down at her.

Together they gasp as a bird lamed from flight falls into water. It soars, gracious and gliding, master of that hidden world: powerful.

Friends call: they move apart. The girl adjusts her yellow hat; the man replaces his fuzzy gloves.

"Nice to meet you, Sakura-san."

"Yes, Sakurazuka-san."

They share a hidden smile: gracious, gliding, powerful.

(100 words)


	3. A Trumpet Shall Be Heard on High

**3. A Trumpet Shall Be Heard on High**

_Fandom: Card Captor Sakura, X/1999/Clamp Campus Detectives;_

_Characters: Imonoyama Nokoru, Kinomoto Nadeshiko;_

_Warnings/Notes: Rather depressing semi-AU. Title from and references to Dryden's "Song for Saint Cecilia's Day."_

Because the heavenly harmony has warped, the dead now haunt any who happen to have blood quickening their veins. Ever courteous, Nokoru sits in the half-intact music room of his school as Lady Ghost brushes trailing hair and feathers over her shoulders and silently works the keys of an antique harmonium.

From the window dying sunlight brushes his hair and moustache to old gold. Tokyo Tower, stark black against the bloody fruit of the sun, cracks and lurches half over. She is beside him now - he takes her hand. She lifts him ever higher as music untunes the sky.

(100 words)


	4. Exorcism

**4. Exorcism**

_Fandom: Tokyo Babylon/X/1999 (manga continuity), Card Captor Sakura;  
Characters: Sumeragi Subaru/Daidouji Tomoyo;  
Rating: Het, T (probably an overkill rating);  
Warnings/Notes: Allusions to Robert Graves' "To Don Juan at Summer Solstice". EDIT: Now with more adjectives!_

*

*

There is only one story.

This thin, nervous, exhausted man sits awkwardly in a curve-backed brocade chair. His cheap cigarettes nearly mask his scent of grief-under-cherries - they twitch at Tomoyo's nose. But his (clear green, warm brown) eyes hide purity and earnestness, as if the passion-ghosts he had drawn from her haunted video archives went into him, wound into a living – touchable – heart. He startles into a blushing stammer; she smiles secretly.

This gracious, smiling woman is unlike anyone Subaru knew before. Music dwells in her voice, and kindness that is never feigned. She pours more tea, in a cup neither joyfully gaudy nor bluffly (falsely) plain but rather elegant as her curving fingers. It smells of bergamot - _nobody_ he knew liked Earl Grey. She blinks serene eyes; he realises he is smiling.

Her brow is creamy as the crested wave as she draws him down.

*

*

(150 words)


	5. Parttime Job 1,027

**5. Part-Time Job #1,027**

_Fandom: Card Captor Sakura, Man of Twenty Faces;_

_Characters: Kinomoto Touya, Ijyuin Akira, Kinomoto Sakura;_

_Warnings/Notes: All Daisy Ninja Girl's Fault._

He'd done it, he'd finally found a job where his monstrous little sister couldn't find him. (For, always and ever, she would find extravagant trouble, Touya would drop the icecream or baby to save her, and then he'd be looking for new employment again.)

Admittedly, piloting a spaceshuttle towards a giant pufferfish-shaped space-station for purposes of theft was dodgy but he'd given up caring. His employer, a very small boy in a domino-masked spacesuit gave a thumb's-up and drifted confidently off into vacuum.

The radio crackled static: _...hoeeeee, Windy, explosive decompression is __not nice__..._

Touya sighed.

(100 words)

_Extra points if you can tell me what they were stealing for I have no idea. _

_If you enjoyed these, you may want to check out "She is My Sin; He is My Sin" by Fuzzy Serpent, here on ffnet: unexpected, funny, and strangely appropriate. _

_This series might be continued if I think up more pairings – submissions from readers are welcome. Cheers._


	6. i thank You God for most this amazing

**6. i thank You God for most this amazing**

_Fandoms: Card Captor Sakura, X/1999;_

_Characters: Kinomoto Fujitaka, Monou Fuuma;_

_Warnings/Notes: Title and additional references from e. e. cummings' poem of the same name._

Because he had promised not to cry, Fujitaka went to the park. (Sonomi-kun cradled the girl babies fiercely, traded glowers with the boy: they were safe.) Now he walked among leaping greenly spirits of trees which

- were natural were infinite were need not returning -

But he stopped. It was _here._

Grinning stupidly, he told the young man on the parkbench (tall, as _her son_ might become tall), "The love of my life fell from that branch."

The man (boy) lowered his sunglasses.

"You Wish to live."

- and it was the birthday of life and of love and wings -

_yes_

(100 words)


	7. A Particular Kind of Hell

**7. A Particular Kind of Hell**

_Fandoms: X/1999, Man of Twenty Faces_

_Characters: Kamui, Ogawa Utako _

_Warnings/Notes: Very, very sorry. Continuity may be a bit out of whack._

Kamui owed a lot to Chairman Imonoyama, what with the worldsaving and mansion and disappearing hospital bills. So when the Chairman had a problem Kamui was grumpily forbearing (which was Kamui-speak for 'more than happy to help').

Only... he hadn't expected _this._

Fearsome women armoured in wafty gauze surrounded him while their youthful leader smote him. "Help us, Kamui-sama!" she cried. "You're the only one with the style, the _gravitas_, the, the physical build!"

_Whatever._

As the Wedding March began, Kamui pouted. He didn't mind being a flowergirl so much, but the lilac petals clashed with his eyes.

(100 words)


	8. Girl Talk

**8. Girl Talk**

_Fandoms: Card Captor Sakura, X/1999;  
Characters: Daidouji Sonomi, Kasumi Karen;  
Rating: T;  
__Warnings/Notes: Rated for talking around a topic which I don't think anyone can find agreeable. References to Song of Solomon, Ch. VI, v. 10. EDIT: Now with more adjectives!_

*

Sonomi hated everything about pregnancy: vomiting, cravings, insomnia, incontinence, waddling... But in the teashop outside the gynecology clinic she found she could agree with Ms Kasumi: Doctor Akechi did have nice warm hands.

Ms Kasumi leaned stiffly forward for her cup and narrow, severe dark clothes rearranged like dawn coming out of night, revealing sunbright hair and moon-fair limbs - a hint of dark lace. She glanced sideways at Sonomi's hands, "You're not married?"

"_Not for much longer_," Sonomi snarled.

"Ah."

Sonomi couldn't keep from glancing at the other's flat stomach, but stifled the question. Some things you didn't ask about. Still, she was answered.

"I go to war." Ms Kasumi's amber eyes dropped to her tea, as if it were the most interesting liquid in the world.

Sonomi yanked Ms Kasumi's hand onto her kicking belly. "Then be terrible."

Ms Kasumi spread her fingers. "As an army with banners."

*

(150 words)


	9. That Thing Called Attention Span

**9. That Thing Called Attention Span**

_Fandoms: Cardcaptor Sakura, RGVeda;_

_Characters: Akizuki Nakuru, Ashura, Suppi;_

_Notes/Warnings: Ref to __War Games__ (old movie), sideways__ reference to Calvin and Hobbes (by which I mean their Noodle Incident). For Vicks111. (Sorry if I messed up Ashura; it's been a while since I read RGVeda.)_

This was better than playing global thermonuclear war, better than watering Suppi, better than karaoke night. It was, Nakuru thought reverently, even better than The Macaroni Incident.

She poked the tangle of anguished roots in front of her. Again, the entity inside formed a spirit-body – a fiery androgynous child. Nakuru totally dug that.

It smiled slyly: _I am Great Burning: passion and light and the death of worlds. Free me. _

This. Was. Awesome.

_Release my flame everlasting._

A grouchy cat appeared from the bushes. "Eriol says your cookies are burning. _I_ don't care."

"Oops," Nakuru told Ashura, "gotta go."

(100 words)


	10. Adventures in the Wish Trade

**10. Adventures in the Wish Trade**

_Fandoms: xxxHolic, Card Captor Sakura_

_Characters: Doumeki Haruka, Li Syaoran, Doumeki Shizuka_

_Notes/Warnings: Am taking liberties with the Doumeki family and saying that Shizuka's father married in, that is, Haruka had a daughter, who had Shizuka. It does tidily explain why Daddy has no spirit powers (am sure he is a good man, though). And I gave Mummy a name. Sue me. Another for Vicks111 (you gives the review, you gets the drabble). EDIT: Now with fifty more words (couldn't make it clear with less)._

*

Haruka thought that Shizuka resembled his daughter at that age. The longer hair helped, and the scarlet girl's kimono that Hisoka retrieved from her pawlonia chest last month. Haruka adjusted the feebly coughing boy on his shoulder and glanced sideways at his companion.

"It is not that we lack Wishes," he remarked, "but that She will not take our price."

The dark young man stared through posts crowned with half-moons as if intensity of regard could batter the universe. But all there was to see was a derelict lot.

"And is it wrong?" said Haruka. "Sometimes our only endurance is holding a Wish strongly." He stroked Shizuka's hair regretfully. "As this one does not.

"Would you trade with my grandson, Li Syaoran-kun? Let the price for holding a Wish be... holding a Wish."

He offered his grandchild. Li hesitated, and touched Shizuka's sagging head.

Shizuka opened his eyes.

*

(150 words)

_And that has some weird implications for teenager!Doumeki. Sometimes I don't know where these will end up. Also, these things are seriously addictive. (For the record, my head canon says that Doumeki would do all he does for a total stranger or someone he hated: because Doumeki is just that kind of guy.)_


	11. Applied Solipsism

**11. Applied Solipsism**

_Fandoms: xxxHolic, Card Captor Sakura;_

_Characters: Watanuki Kimihiro, Yue;_

_Notes/Warnings: Apology time again, Vicks._

*

This is the ghost story Watanuki never told.

High summer, and damp hot air shuddered his skin. A yellow harvest moon glowered through the tangled branches of the trees he ran through. He was eight, and it wasn't fair that the monster hunting him was pretty.

The long-haired angel slipped through the trees as if it were only air; it ignored salt and slipped past the temple wards Watanuki scattered, its pale face stern and intent.

Watanuki seized the last defense he had: "_You don't exist!"_ he told the angel.

And, in one moment of horrified realisation, it didn't.

*

(100 words)

_Eh, they both seem to dance the Existential Anxiety Tango, you know?_


	12. Sizing Up the Opposition

**12. Sizing Up the Opposition**

_Fandoms: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle/Angelic Layer_

_Characters: Kurogane (Kinghawk), ludicrously mature six-year-old girl_

_Notes/Warnings: Call it Kurogane's presence in the Angelic Layer world, 'kay? For MichaelPirate. And screw this 100 word limit, I can't meet it without harming some of the stories._

*

He comes alive in the ring.

- falling through sharp air limbs stretching _breathe_ and it is golden -

Heavy boots hit the ground and the crowd roars _King Hawk! King Hawk! _(King Hawk is his public name, for fighting. But he and the only person that matters know he's Kurogane, _black steel_.) Golden control wires settle loosely around him; he grins fiercely.

He eyes his opponent, a long leggy mouthful in black and red really working her fishnets. The way she whips those limbs around speaks endless hours of hard training. _Good._

Then, what makes Kurogane great, he looks _behind_ his opponent, finds her Prime Mover, her reason-for-being, her God. There she is in the Outside, a tiny scrap of girl with black hair pouring over her shoulders; enormous, solemn eyes gleaming behind the control helmet.

Kurogane reckons he could have liked this Deus, in another time and place.

But her Angel is going _down_.

*

(150 words)

_They say one of the best training methods was getting your Angel to dance..._


	13. Ecce! Simia Volens!

**13. Ecce! Simia Volens!**

_Fandoms: Clamp Campus Detectives, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle;_

_Characters: Takamura Suou, Fai D. Fluorite, Kurogane, Imonoyama Nokoru;_

_Notes/Warnings: Illicit dealings._

*

The red-eyed man in the net snarled futilely. Suou ignored him: there was more than one thief in the house tonight.

He risked a glance at the Chairman's precious Artifact: an energy-feather twisting pristinely in its case. Then, a rustle was all the warning before a black-garbed man on a rope dangled his head too close in Suou's space.

The golden-haired man smiled sweetly. "Look, a flying monkey."

Suou wasn't buying a ridiculous distraction like that - his gaze did not waver.

Then the flying monkey beaned him on the head with a coconut.

He woke to Nokoru's concerned gaze and an empty hall. Sour shame twisted his belly. "I'm so sorry, Chairman. _I will get it back._"

Nokoru shrugged delicately. "I knew the feather had a destiny. Perhaps this was it." His eyes gleamed. "Next time, _we'll_ be the robbers."

The winged monkey nibbled Suou's hair.

*

(150 words)

_The title is Latin for, "Look! A flying monkey!" _


	14. The Mathematics Tutor

**14. The Mathematics Tutor**

_Fandoms: X/1999, Card Captor Sakura;_

_Characters: Nekoi Yuzuriha, Spinel Sun;_

_Notes/Warnings: None._

*

Yuzuriha knew her classmates didn't believe in invisible dogs. And they were dubious about mysterious waterfalls in the mountains. (They did believe she was failing maths.) She thought it best not to describe her dealings with the tutor her grandmother had found.

An enormous paw whacked her upside the head.

"Miss Nekoi," chided Spinel Sun (sir!), "application is required."

She poked her tongue; he growled. Inuki hid his nose under his paws.

So... lessons from a butterfly-winged panther? Best not to gossip.

(If she did well he let her curl against his side and draw happy kittens and puppies.)

*

(100 words)


	15. In the Stone Corner

**15. In the Stone Corner**

_Fandoms: xxxHolic, Card Captor Sakura;_

_Characters: Doumeki Shizuka, Keroberous;_

_Notes/Warnings: In the same continuity as 10. Adventures in the Wish Trade and 11. Applied Solipsism, for whatever that's worth. Title and Doumeki's quote from a Cantonese tongue-twister. Tamagoyaki is a thin omelet rolled up and sliced into snack-sized bits - 'tain't bad._

*

" 'The lion-eating poet in the stone corner,' " Doumeki offered, pushing his broom.

"Shih!" scoffed his guest. "Whaddaya know about poetry anyway?" he added, in a twangy Kansai accent.

Doumeki shrugged.

His guest declaimed: "_Tamagoyaki:  
__Golden summer sun, may you  
__Rise in my belly._ Now _that's_ poetry."

"... so you want to vomit?"

The giant cat's tail lashed and his wings beat, blowing detritus into Doumeki's face and over the grass.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm lost," Keroberous admitted. "Hey, have ya seen a grumpy bundla feathers with a bow?"

Doumeki shook his head. The not-lion sighed.

Then, "Ya smell good," Keroberous said.

"I don't swing that way."

"Also, strangely irritating."

Doumeki went to empty a bag of debris. Over his shoulder he said, "You can stay if you want."

"... do ya have a playstation?"

When he came back the not-lion was asleep, falling cherry-blossom twitching his ears.

*

(150 words)


	16. That Time in Hell

**16. That Time in Hell**

_Fandoms: Card Captor Sakura, Wish;  
Characters: Clow Reed, Koyuko the Prince of Hell;  
Rating: T;  
Notes/Warnings: For a saccharine-sweet series, Wish was surprisingly clear on who was sleeping with whom, who __had__ been sleeping with whom, and who was habouring hopeful thoughts: I apologise for nothing! Opening sentence stolen from I can't remember where. A__lso, was riffing off The Descent of Inanna, an old Sumerian story._

_*_

_*_

"So you won't sell your soul?" Koyuko lounged against the obsidian Ninth Gate of Hell's Highway, robed in shadow and fire and the twisted hair of passionate women.

Clow Reed smiled amiably. S_an_ Guardians, _sans_ staff of power, _sans_ robes of magery – all deposited at other Gates - he retained a worn linen shirt and drawers, and his round glasses. Something about the lighting in Hell made them glint constantly.

Koyuko wondered what the magician would be like between the sheets. Or on a bed of bloodred thorny roses, perhaps. He loomed over Clow and purred, "Then what will you offer me to pass?"

Clow smiled, tilting his face up to Koyuko.

"My congratulation on your impending nuptuals, Prince of Hell."

Koyuko's brow darkened. What did he know? What did he know that Koyuko _didn't? _Nuptuals? What the _heaven?!_

When Koyuko recovered from his fit of paranoia, the magician was gone.

_*_

_*_

(150 words)

_Koyuko is now one of a select group of people who can truthfully state whether Clow Reed had knobby knees. Can the world bear to know?_


	17. Diptych

**17. Diptych**

_Fandoms: xxxHolic, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle;  
__Characters: Sakura-hime; Kunogi Himawari;  
__Notes/Warnings: Arguably not a crossover at all. Artistic wankery. Er, a diptych can be any two similar linked objects, f'rinstance two pictures in a foldable case. _

*

*

_brightness falls from the air_

She is painted high in the panel without visible support among the twisted branches and falling cherryblossom of her namesake. The artist used pale watercolours to sketch sunflower-bright hair and gauzy floating garments.

Light eyes fall; regretful fingers arch downwards.

We know there is a corpse under the cherry tree.

*

_the sunflower girl_

stands foot-sunk in sticky black earth. Layers of rich oils illustrate lustrous hair, embroidered robe piled on brilliant embroidered robe, and gaudy sunflowers rampaging out of earth.

Cheeks blush pink as cherryblossom; her arms reach upwards.

Sunflowers might mean hope.

*

*

(100 words)

_Brightness Falls From the Air is the title of a book by James Tiptree Jr., of no significance except I loved the phrase. __This will be the last for a while, I think. The urge to write them has passed (though they were indubitably fun at the time). __Cheers._


	18. Fluid Mechanics

**18. Fluid Mechanics**

_Fandoms: Tsubasa, xxxHolic  
Characters: Acid Tokyo!Yuuto, Yuuko, Kamui  
Rating: K+;  
Notes/Warnings: Arguably not a crossover. pH is a scale for acidity/alkalinity: 7 is neutral; 1 is very acidic._

_*_

_*  
_

When he was younger they said, _You're good with numbers and the Watermaster needs an apprentice. Go to, Yuta._

Yuuto was a peacable man for the times in which he lived: he liked to go with the flow. So young Yuuto smiled, and nodded, and sauntered to the cluttered office just above the old battered Diet Building's reservoir, where a half-crazed relic from Before taught him about pH and metereology and litres of water consumption per head per year. _We're doomed,_ the Watermaster said, tugging his twisted beard. Yuuto smiled and nodded.

Scraping parts for their dying filter rig was a change from hunting giant mutant earthworms in the acid rain (pH down half a point from last year) or defending the Building from the Things that came out of the dark Tokyo nights, but they still, shorthanded, dragged him out to fight. Neither activity was particularly interesting. Still, Yuta kept at it: this was the job he'd been given and he didn't like conflict enough to change it.

He was having a – courteous, _amiable -_ discussion with the Master Hydroponicist, about to wander upstairs to explain to the civvies why there was no washing water this month, when a hysterical runner told him half the Water Guards had been killed by a crazy Outsider who was, even now, brooding over their reservoir like it was his only hope of salvation. (But it would save no-one. Not forever, not even for long.) _Oh, and the old Watermaster is dead; we know you can fill his crusty pink bunny slippers, Yuuto__. Go to!_

Ah well, at least there were less mouths to suck up his water now.

Life went on as normally as Tokyo got – the Outsider guarded the reservoir as well as the men and women he had killed, his eyes as wild and glittering as the old Watermaster's. Yuuto wondered idly when he himself would go mad, but abandoned the question for the more immediate water consumption equations cycling through his head. He scheduled his trips to measure waterlevel and contaminants for those times (rare) when the slight Outsider was sleeping or (quite often) fighting. Kamui really was a beautiful boy, but so _fierce._

And more Outsiders came, and there was a brief exciting time when the water went away and was replaced and their mortal enemies decided to move in... Yuuto smiled and nodded to it all because going mad was far, far too troublesome. He watched a pretty Tower redhead grin sharply and joyfully as she poured half a river out of a small glass globe and had no idea what she was so happy about – water flowed, that was all. (And it wasn't enough, anyway. Half a lake, now, half a _sea_ he could do something with.)

That night he dreamed the Time Space Witch was swimming in his reservoir, her white jade body moving sinuously through the living green. And Yuuto was crouching at the edge, explaining about evaporation and recycling loss and increasing acidity – all the equations that marched through his head daily. Then she was by the edge, smiling wickedly through strands of black hair and coyly flipping a scaled tail as he talked about chaotic weather systems and pollutant saturation, about planetary oxygen depletion and catastrophic biosphere failure. _Water goes downhill,_ he said, smiling affably. _It is inevitable._

_Ah, inevitability,_ she replied, touching him under the chin with one long, curved fingernail. _And that is hitsuzen?_ The sharp nail moved along the bone of his jaw and then down the line of his throat. He felt the cool trickling of liquid down the skin and might have reached to touch it were he not caught by the colossal joke in her eyes, eyes the red of blood falling through dark water. He didn't understand that joke, but he wanted to.

_Ah well_, said Yuuto, smiling wryly. _It might be interesting to go against the flow._

Go to, Yuuto.


	19. Enter Freely, and of Your Own Will

**1****9****. ****... Enter Freely, and of Your Own Will.**

_Fandoms: Tsubasa, __Card Captor Sakura  
Characters: Tsubasa!Vampire!Kamui, Hiiragizawa Eriol, Tsubasa!Vampire!Subaru  
Rating: K+;  
Notes/Warnings: __'__E__'__ and__ '__Emono__'__ were translated by __the licensed English translator__ as 'game'__ for good and sound reasons, but this drabble works better with the original Japanese. (They mean 'prey', with an implication of 'artificial human created as food-animal for a vampire.')_

*

*

"Are you E?"

The small, humanish child, clad in robes that even Kamui in his chained opera cloak considered darkly gaudy smiled briefly, eyes lost behind the reflection of his glasses. "I am Exquisite," he replied, voice oddly deep. "I am Excellent, occasionally Ecstatic. But I am not E." A smile touched the boy's lips again. "For you." He gestured to a manor house. "Please, come in for tea.

The disconsolate, polite shadow behind him bowed deeply. "We are honoured by your hospitality," said Subaru, "Great..."

"Call me Eriol."

"We do not drink... tea," insisted Kamui.

Smile-touch: "Here you do."

*

*

(100 words)

_Scene that I most regret not making the word-limit: Nakuru putting Subaru in a dress._


	20. Gothic

**20. Gothic**

_Fandoms: , Card Captor Sakura, Tsubasa  
Characters: Yanagisawa Naoko (that girl what liked ghost stories), Tsubasa!Vampire!Subaru  
Rating: K+  
Notes/Warnings: A bit cracky. A reviewer of 19 wanted the scene where Nakuru tries to put Vampire!Subaru into a dress. This is not that scene! (It is the aftermath.) _

*

*

Naoko liked the grounds of the mysterious manor at night. They gave her inspiration.

So she was there when a frail slender figure in a wafty white dress threw open a second-story window, jumped, outrageously, to the sodden ground, and fled through the storm-struck woods.

A tree-root, a tangle of lace about desperate feet, and the fugitive fell! Naoko caught the delicately pretty person and brushed inky black locks back to see enormous yellow eyes flick open.

"H-h-h-" the fugitive gasped.

"Help?"

"H-h-h-"

"Horror?"

"H-h-h-_hair-ribbon._"

"You mean one of these?" Naoko brandished the frilly article helpfully.

Subaru's wail was heart-rending.


End file.
